The importance of the Scoop in Blogging

This week is a very busy week for me. Both in my general life but also my blogging. In particularly the blogging side of things is pretty hectic as there is a trade show happening in Orlando where all the major digital camera manufacturers unveil their newest models for the year ahead. Last year saw 60 or more cameras released in a couple of weeks and the indications are that this year will be similar.

As the editor of a Digital Photography Blog this means life is about to get a little crazy. Press Releases are hitting my inbox every hour or so, I’m scanning the manufacturers sites for pre release information and mistakenly early released information for new cameras and accessories. Of course I’m not alone as all the other digital imaging sites are jostling for position to see who can be the first to post the breaking stories.

You see there is a few reasons why its good to be first.

1. Prestige – its great to be able to say you were first to post information on a new camera or that you broke the news on something that no one else knew about. This actually does your site some good in the PR stakes. Digicam enthusiasts respect you if you’ve got your finger on the pulse – plus it feels good.

2. Links – if you’re the first to post there is an increased chance that you’ll get incoming links from others wanting to link up to your pages. This is very important. A few incoming links to your page can push you to the top of the Search Engine rankings – especially in the early days where there is little competition. Being in the top few for a popular new camera can be very worthwhile.

3. Search Engine Robots – get your post up quickly and you increase the chance of being indexed by the SE robots and appearing in the SE results a lot quicker. I’ve noticed that many of my new pages for digicams can be indexed and bringing in referrals within 24 – 36 hours. This gives you a jump on the competition. Again being the only one listed on SEs can actually bring in more inbound links as other webmasters look for information on the cameras.

So its worth getting in early and being the first to post on a topic. It’ll help your reputation but also can bring in some tangible benefits in terms of traffic.